The role of knowledge spaces in geographically-oriented history

Abstract

This paper posits that the history of any place and people are connected by Knowledge Spaces which are the subsets of different assumptions about the real-world that are thought of enduring over a period of time, existing as a whole at each moment during that period, and possibly undergoing various types of changes. Within each Knowledge Space, people and places are connected by scale-free networks that are the sources of innovation and the emergence of new forms. Behaviour and processes, in this perspective, are interpreted by reference to a particular context of a network which has important perceptual, attitudinal, and behavioural consequences in how places and people are embedded in this network.This paper seeks to identify promising Knowledge Spaces that might extend, challenge or reaffirm our prevailing, quite often implicit assumptions on the design of Historical GIS. At the very least, this assessment will clarify those areas of cross-disciplinary exchange that we might decide not to explore further. The paper sets off by depicting three main types of Knowledge Spaces that are firmly founded on Ernst Cassirer's three space progression in the learning process. They are from a concrete identification and spatial presentation of places and people (e.g. cartographic maps and gazetteers), to a symbolic representation (e.g. social maps and ontologies), and finally, to an abstract conception of space (e.g. cognitive/mental maps and narratives).